Peru in Uproar After Fujimori, a Rights Violator, Gets Medical Pardon

Former President Alberto Fujimori of Peru at a court hearing in Lima in 2013. He was granted a medical pardon on Sunday.CreditErnesto Benavides/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Andrea Zarate

Dec. 25, 2017

LIMA, Peru — A day after granting a medical pardon toformer President Alberto Fujimori, who has been imprisoned for human rights abuses, Peru’s current president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, came under attack from both lawmakers in Peru’s Congress and from human rights experts.

Rights lawyers in Lima, the capital, say pardons and sentence reductions are not permitted for people tried for rights violations under the rules of the Inter-American Human Rights Court, which adjudicates some human rights cases in Peru and other countries that are members of the Organization of American States. Two of the cases brought against Mr. Fujimori were tried by the court.

“The pardon does not conform with the Inter-American Human Rights Court ruling,” said Francisco Soberón, director of the Pro-Human Rights Association, in Lima, which represents surviving family members of the cases.

Mr. Soberón said his group was preparing to file a report with the court seeking to have the pardon reversed.

He also said his group would file a formal complaint to Peru’s Ministry of Justice, seeking an audit of a medical report that Mr. Kuczynski’s office had cited in its statement announcing the pardon on Sunday. The report said Mr. Fujimori “suffers from a progressive, degenerative and incurable disease, and the prison conditions pose a serious risk to his life, health and integrity.”

Mr. Fujimori, who is 79, suffers from arrhythmia and tongue cancer, among other medical problems, and was taken from prison to a hospital on Friday after his blood pressure dropped, doctors said.

The pardon is the latest development in Peru’s continuing political crisis.

Mr. Kuczynski granted the pardon just after he narrowly escaped being impeached by Congress over accusations connecting him to a graft scandal extending across Latin America. The impeachment vote failed because a faction of Mr. Fujimori’s party led by his son Kenji abstained, denying Mr. Kuczynski’s opponents the supermajority required to remove him. The pardon was seen by some as a political reward to the son.

Image

Keiko Fujimori, a daughter of Mr. Fujimori, arriving at the hospital to visit her father after he was pardoned on Sunday.CreditGuadalupe Pardo/Reuters

“I think that those of us who are committed to governance need an explanation,” said Congressman Richard Acuña, one of those who abstained.

After the vote, Carlos Basombrío, the interior minister, announced his resignation. Now at least three lawmakers have come forward to say they will resign because they oppose the president’s decision to pardon Mr. Fujimori.

“I do not agree with the decision,” Congressman Vicente Zeballos said. “It does not fit with my political convictions.”

As the democratically elected president of Peru in the 1990s, Mr. Fujimori led the country through a period of economic revival. But he was removed from office in a corruption scandal and later convicted of human rights abuses that the military carried out in his name. If he serves his sentence to the end, he will be in prison for 14 more years, or until he is 93.

Even from prison, Mr. Fujimori has exerted influence on politics, and his supporters, so-called Fujimoristas, dominate the legislature. He also has supporters among Peru’s citizens.

On Sunday, people congregated on the street in Lima in front of the hospital where Mr. Fujimori is being treated. Dozens shouted their support for him as Mr. Fujimori’s daughter Keiko, who leads another faction in his party and is Mr. Kuczynski’s chief rival, arrived to visit her father and stated her gratitude to Mr. Kuczynski.

But at the same time, anti-Fuijimoristas rallied near the Presidential Palace at Lima’s main San Martin Plaza holding signs that read “dictatorship, never again” and “illegal pardon equals impunity.”

Family members of victims in the human rights case say they are upset about the pardon.

“The likely upshot is yet more severe cynicism — already at dangerously record levels — and more intense political polarization,” said Cynthia McClintock, a professor of political science at George Washington University.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Rights Lawyers Dispute Medical Pardon in Peru. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe